


All the Corners of the World

by robpatFF



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:49:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robpatFF/pseuds/robpatFF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in response to <a href="http://tracedust.tumblr.com/post/32692996549/harry-and-louis-in-central-park">these tags on Tumblr</a> though I'd recommend not reading those first unless you want to be spoiled. Alternatively, university!AU in which Harry runs away to New York City with only his camera and a playlist and Louis doesn't have a good side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Corners of the World

**Author's Note:**

> This took me far too long to write. It contains too many lyrics from The Kooks and also too many references to Louis' fringe because it is my favorite thing. Many thanks to Mathab and Brie and James for sticking through this with me even though it took a good ten years to finish, it feels like.

\-----

New York City is cold in the early mornings, even with all the buildings holding in heat and all the people jammed everywhere. It’s always freezing when Harry steps outside his dorm, which is why he bundles up on Sundays, his fingers hiding in his sleeves while he walks to Central Park.

On Sundays it’s not so crowded, the people still sleeping off their hangovers and enjoying the last day of the weekend. Sometimes Harry wishes he’d stayed in bed a little longer, clung to the warm sheets and the soft mattress, but he bundles up and trudges out anyway every Sunday morning round seven.

It’s tradition really, the only one Harry really has.

The morning air burns his cheeks red, makes him pull his beanie down a bit more to cover his ears. On Sundays there are only the hushed, quiet conversations that Harry catches as he passes the coffeeshops and on the edges of street corners waiting for the straggling cabs to stop. There is only the music he blasts from his earphones, the bass that matches his heartbeat and the lyrics that wake him up and calm his racing thoughts. There is only the snap of his camera as he catches the sun peeking out over the top of a silver-lined skyscraper, the weathered face of the shopkeeper sweeping up before she opens for business.

There is only the music and the pictures and Harry.

There are only these Sunday mornings, it feels like sometimes, with Harry just another person in the crowd trying to get a moment of silence in the city that never sleeps.

On these mornings, Central Park is quiet. It’s just the quiet gallop of the buggies that travel ‘round, waiting to give a ride. There are joggers, sometimes, in their own worlds with their own soundtracks blasting through their speakers. There are mothers with babies and uni kids making the long trudge back to their dorms or waking up with coffee so hot it burns the pads of their fingers.

Harry takes it all in, breathing in the city air deep and easy and looking out through his camera lense before his legs get restless and it’s time for him to run away from the worries niggling at the edges of his mind, from the coursework and the numbers and the thoughts of home that creep into his consciousness and settle heavy in his chest.

This is tradition, too. Kicking a ball around and feeling his heart rate increase. Harry usually finds a quiet corner for this, to give himself room to move around, to chase after a ball and let his mind quiet. To let the music get louder until all he can hear is the thumping beat and the faint thud of the ball being kicked. It’s just Harry here, without distractions and responsibilities and expectations.

He’s just Harry from Cheshire when he’s here. Not an Economics major. Not a boy with a pretty accent who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He’s just Harry. Alone in a big city with nothing from home but a few dozen tailored playlists and an old camera and a worn-down football he kicks around on Sunday mornings.

Harry feels himself getting warm, his blood rushing through his ears and the music thumping in time with his heartbeat and his head and the rhythm of his legs over the trampled grass.

He gets so caught up in it that he misses the, “Sorry, mate!” that comes his way and the ball that’s flying toward his face. He just feels the dewy grass against his back when he falls and the laughter bubbling up in his chest.

“Christ, you trying to kill me?” he says, when he sees the shadow of a boy looking down at him. “Could warn a guy, you know.”

“I did,” the boy says. “About two seconds before I knocked you out. Fair warning, I’d say.” He looks down at Harry, face torn between amusement and vague concern. “You alright?”

The sun’s shining down too bright for Harry to see properly, but he can make out the bright blue eyes and the brunette fringe tucked up under a beanie.

“I’m Harry,” he says.

“Louis,” the boy tells him, and he’s got his own pretty accent, Harry notices. “That doesn’t quite answer my question though.”

Harry takes a deep breath and heaves himself up. There’s a twinge of pain in the back of his head, but nothing he won’t live through. His kit’s filthy though, grass stuck to his trackpants and smudged into the material.

He’ll live.

“I’ll live,” he says.

“Well, thank God for that, eh?” Louis tells him. He’s got a smile that lingers and dark smudges under his eyes that tell a story Harry wants to know line by line, is the thing. “I’ll be seeing you around.” He’s turning around when Harry catches sight of the angle of his jaw and the way the sun reflects off his eyes.

“Hey, wait,” Harry says. He fumbles around for his camera, his fingers shaking against the smooth steel. “Can I take your picture?”

He watches Louis’ jaw clench, the way his face looks less open than it did a few seconds before. “Why?”

Harry shrugs and holds up the camera, twisting his mouth into something hopeful. “I like to take pictures of beautiful things.”

Louis huffs out a laugh, his shoulders dropping a bit, his mouth loosening up at the edges. “That’s all you want? A picture?”

“Yeah.”

Louis stares at him hard, his eyes flicking down to the football in his hands. “I’ll play you for it,” he says finally. “You win, you get your picture.”

“Are you serious?” Harry asks him. “I’m not really that good.”

Louis shrugs, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Do you want the picture or not?”

And Harry does. Harry wants to capture the blues and the brown and the bronze tan that covers Louis’ skin. He wants the cautious smile and the taut and strong shoulders as a keepsake. He wants to add Louis to his photo album as another beautiful part of the city.

“Okay.”

The thing is, Louis is _really_ good. His muscles move almost rhythmically, like they’ve been doing this every day for years. Louis looks in his element, wisps of fringe flying out from under his beanie and his face flushed. Harry spends more time watching him than running, his fingers itching to capture how Louis’ legs look, the smile on his face when he kicks the ball through their makeshift goal.

“Come on, Harry,” he teases. “I’m not impressed.”

“This isn’t usually how I go about impressing people, if I’m being honest.”

Louis laughs at how hard Harry’s breathing, the way he lags behind when Louis sprints out in front.

“Hey, how long are we going to do this?” Harry asks when Louis does something fancy with his feet and suddenly Harry is lying on his back in the grass. “Because I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to keep up with you.”

Louis stands over Harry, his smile a bit brighter, a bit bigger. The front of his hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat and his shirt sticks to his chest and his belly. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Keeping up with me?”

“I told you I wasn’t good,” Harry says. “I remember saying that.”

“You said you weren’t _that_ good,” Louis corrects. “You never said you couldn’t play at all. “

“Does this mean I didn’t win, then?”

Louis leans down a little closer, and he smells like sweat and grass and soap, all the real things Harry wishes he could fit in a photograph.

“You definitely didn’t win, mate.”

And Louis is sweaty as all hell, his cheeks flushed and his chest heaving. He’s laughing and Harry’s never seen this boy before but it feels like he’s known him for a lifetime, could know him for more.

Harry raises his camera slowly, and Louis watches, his head tilted and his eyes amused. Harry snaps the photo quick before rising up to his feet.

“You’re a cheater,” Louis tells him. “I’m impressed.”

Harry smiles then, wrapping the camera around his neck and adjusting his hat. “Hey, look. Do you maybe want to, like--- get breakfast with me or something?”

And Louis smiles again, something smaller and deeper and sadder and Harry bites his lip because he can already see the answer on Louis’ face. “I’ve got to get to work soon,” Louis says. “And I’m not really--looking for anything right now.”

Harry nods, his heart thumping overtime in his chest and his fingers clutching his camera tight. “That’s--yeah, that’s okay. It was nice meeting you?”

“It was nice meeting you, yeah,” Louis says, his tone mocking enough that Harry cracks a smile. “I’ll see you around, Harry.”

And Louis salutes him--no, he actually salutes him--and Harry watches him walk away, his bag slung loose over his shoulder and his fingers fumbling over the keys on his phone.

\-----

-

Harry walks back to his dorm, thumbing through the pictures on his camera, from the sunrise and the bleary-eyed people on the street corners to the quiet atmosphere of Central Park and Louis smiling down at him, eyes made brighter by the blue sky behind his head.

His music blasts through his ears and Harry isn’t thinking about all the homework he has to do before tomorrow or the fact that there is an entire ocean between him and home. He’s thinking about football and early mornings and a boy with a smile and crinkles in the corner of his eyes.

He prints the picture out back in his dorm, the fresh ink highlighting Louis’ angular features and his tan. Harry gives the picture its own page in his album, jotting down the date and time underneath. He writes the name last, writes out _Louis_ in big, bold letters and sits back, satisfied.

He’ll get to the other photos later. But this one--this one feels important.

And a few blocks over, Louis is hopping on his bike, already running a bit late and making up for it with speed. He’s sweaty and his uniform is crumpled in his bag but he’s got a smile on his face, despite the fact that it’s 8:30 on a Sunday morning and he’s got to work for the next 12 hours. He pedals a little faster, cutting through people littered on the sidewalk and between the streetcarts.

He’s out of breath by the time he locks his bike at the back of the hotel, Zayn already peeking his head out the door.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I know, I know,” Louis tells him. He’s already trying to change out of his clothes, slipping his uniform over his T-shirt and fighting to change his shoes. “Did Cowell notice?”

Zayn rolls his eyes, pulling out a fag and lighting up while Louis struggles. “Of course he did. Said he’d dock your pay.”

“Shit,” Louis mutters. “Sorry.”

Zayn waves him away, his head leaned back against the brick of the building. “Don’t worry about it. I got a DJ spot in some hole across town tomorrow night. We’ll make rent.”

Louis presses a kiss to the corner of Zayn’s mouth quick, already slipping through the door. “I’ll see you in a few hours, yeah?”

Zayn snorts. “In a few hours, yeah.”

And Louis’ dead tired all day, but there’s a boy in the back of his mind. With a red mouth and a dirty grin. With messy curls and a worn-in beanie.

With a camera and a picture of Louis somewhere on it.

And Louis doesn’t let himself hope but if he did, he would.

-

\-----

Harry holes himself up in the back of the library by himself, his textbooks piled up on the table and his notes spread out in front of him.

Macroeconomics is kicking his arse in a way he didn’t expect, the way the numbers and words blur together until his eyes cross and his head throbs. He thinks he’s been here for a few hours now, but time starts to blur together until it feels like days, like months that Harry’s been staring at these same problems over and over again.

His Skype lights up with a call from Liam when his eyelids start to droop and his head feels heavy.

“Well, don’t you look gorgeous?”

Liam’s bright-eyed as usual, his hair combed over to it’s usual side and his running kit on. “Don’t tell me you’re exercising this early.”

“I won’t tell you, then,” Liam says, but he’s too bouncy, like he is before any workout. “Where are you? That isn’t your room.”

Harry adjusts the screen to show the stacks of books, the racks of texts that line the walls behind him. “In the library for a bit.”

Liam blinks and moves closer to the screen, his mouth twisted up in a frown. “Isn’t it two in the morning there?”

“I’m sure I’m not the only one here,” Harry says defensively. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I thought you’d be partying over there,” Liam tells him. “Like having fun. Not even I think the library sounds fun, babe.”

Harry sighs and gives into gravity, lets his head thump against the dense textbooks and closes his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about studying.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

Harry closes his eyes tighter and doesn’t look up. “Tell me about home.”

“Harry--”

And so Harry looks up. Just barely. His eyes peek through his curls at the grainy picture of Liam on his screen. “Please, Li? I just--I miss it.”

Liam sighs, but it’s the one that means he’s just thinking, getting his thoughts together before he starts to talk. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything,” Harry says with a shrug. “Everything. How’s my mum?”

He’s already expecting the disappointed glance Liam gives him, and it comes across clearly even though he’s half a world away. “You’d know if you ever called her,” Liam says, but he doesn’t give Harry any time for excuses before he’s talking again. “She’s fine. Just missing you a lot. She told me to send you her love if I talked to you. Gemma too.”

Harry nods, breathing in deep and lowering his head again. “Okay.”

“Not sure there’s much else to tell you,” Liam goes on. “I know Babs is pining away for you in the bakery. She keeps baking too many apple cinnamon muffins and making me eat them.”

Harry huffs out a laugh at that, at the thought of an old woman like Babs forcing muffins down Liam’s throat.

“I miss her muffins,” Harry says. “How’s your mum then? And Ruth? Everyone alright?”

“Yeah, everyone’s alright,” Liam tells him. “Everything is still just as boring as when you left, to be honest.”

Harry swallows and squeezes his eyes shut tighter. “How about--have you heard anything from Nick?”

Harry refuses to look up when Liam sighs, refuses to see the expression on his face because Harry knows, he _knows_ how pathetic this is. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I _don’t_ want to,” Liam says. “There’s not really anything to say anyway. He’s still gallivanting around London like a prick, last I heard.”

“Liam--”

“Yeah, I know. I know, Harry.”

They don’t say anything for a few minutes. Harry tries to slow his breathing, get his heart to stop pounding against his chest like it might just jump out. It takes him a good three minutes to work up the courage to look at Liam properly, to stop hiding his face in his books.

“You okay?” Liam asks him.

And Harry nods because he is. He is. He says it to himself every day, and eventually it will be something that comes naturally. “‘m fine,” is what he says though. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Liam says. “You could always just come--”

“I can’t,” Harry tells him firmly. “I was suffocating back home. You know that. Everything’s too small.”

“And New York City is just the right size for you?”

Harry shrugs and looks away. “I’ll get used to it. I just have to meet some people and get settled.” He looks at all the work he has left, the problems that make no sense, the endless calculations and analysis. “I’ve got to go. I still have work to do.”

“Promise me you’ll sleep a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah, I promise, Li.”

The library seems eerily silent once Liam is off the screen, once Harry is back to being by himself. He looks down at his notes, the scribbled down thoughts that don’t make any more sense now than they did in lecture. He closes his books and fucks around with his photos a bit, touching up red eyes and adding color in places where there’s not enough.

He scrolls through to Louis’ picture. He’s already printed the thing, but now he does a bit of editing. Tries it in black and white. In the ever-dreaded sepia. The thing is, the smile never looks faded. Louis’ eyes never look any less bright, no matter how Harry tries to dim the photo or soften the sharp features and the energy that radiates even through the screen.

Harry shuts down his laptop at half past three, his eyes gritty and heavy and his limbs sluggish as he makes his way back to his dorm. He tucks his earphones in and lets the beat lull him to sleep, his thoughts racing with coursework and home and how fucking big New York City actually is. Harry turns the music up loud and tries to block out all the distractions so he can just get a few hours of sleep.

\-----

-

In a crowded bar near Brooklyn, Louis makes the announcement for closing, his head pounding from the incessant bass of the music and the voices yelling at him over a bar counter all night. He wipes down the stools and the counters and straightens up the bar, feeling stiff and sore from being in constant motion.

There’s a presence behind him, someone who smells like too much alcohol and too much confidence. “You lookin’ for somewhere to go tonight, honey?”

“No,” Louis says shortly. He smiles though, because it’s his job. But his smile feels strained, tight across his face. “It’s time for you to go home, though.”

The guy leans in close, the smile on his own face almost shark-like, and Louis feels sick for a second. “That’s a pretty accent,” he says. “I’d love to hear it in my bedroom.”

Louis snorts before he can help it. “That’s quite original. I’m still going to have to say no.”

Louis clenches his jaw when the guy leans closer, the smell of liquor and smoke overwhelming in their scent. He feels a hand around his wrist, and Louis looks around for security without moving too much. “Get off me,” he says, his voice shaking around the words but still forceful. “I don’t want to have to call the police, yeah?”

There’s a hand on his jaw, sticky and rough. “Shame I won’t get to see your pretty face in my bed. I’m sure I could get some good pictures from that. You’d like that right? Posing for me?”

Louis motions at security and watches as they drag the guy off. He ignores his shaking hands and focuses on cleaning up, concentrating more than usual until he only smells the cleaner and not the sweat and alcohol and sharp cologne.

He bikes back to his flat faster than usual, his music player tucked into his bag because he’s heard enough music tonight to last a lifetime. He can still hear the pounding beats in the back of his head and he pedals faster so the whoosh of the wind past his ears drowns it out.

Zayn is already sleeping when Louis gets back, covered up in about three blankets to fight off the chill in the flat. Louis makes a note to try and pick up a few more shifts somewhere so they can get some heating at least for awhile, so he doesn’t have to feel Zayn shivering against him all night.

He gropes around in the dark for a pair of trackies and slips the hoodie on that Zayn left on the doorknob before getting into bed.

“Did you pull tonight?” Zayn murmurs, still half-asleep. “You don’t smell like you.”

“No,” Louis whispers back. “It’s fine, go back to sleep.”

He waits ‘til he can hear Zayn’s soft snores again before he lets the exhaustion hit him. Louis revels in the silence of their flat, though it’s unusual for their neighborhood. He lets his thoughts slink away into the dark and he sleeps.

-

\-----

It’s a stupid thing, really, the way Harry grabs two coffees the next Sunday morning.

He’s still half-asleep, having dozed through his alarm twice and putting the snooze on for a few times after. The coffee warms his chest though, down his arms and to the tips of his fingers. Not like tea does, nothing warms him up like a mug of his mum’s peppermint tea, but coffee does alright.

It’s all he’s got here, anyway.

The park is thankfully mostly empty with it being just past sunrise. Harry stretches out on his back and stares up at the orange sky, tilts his lense up to get the clouds and the color perfectly captured. He presses down a finger and suddenly he has a piece of New York to add to his album, another part of the city that he can tape down and keep once he leaves.

“Let me guess,” someone says. “You’re a photography major.”

Harry startles only slightly, his lips pulling up into something like a smile. “Wrong,” he replies. “Economics.”

“Boring,” Louis tells him. “Photography suits you better.” He lowers himself to the ground next to Harry and leans his head back. “Bit early for you to be up, yeah? Late night out?”

Always, Harry thinks. “Late night at the library.”

“Ugh,” Louis says. “Gross.”

Harry turns his camera until Louis is centered in the frame, bundled up in a hoodie and red trousers. His hair is uncovered today, hanging across his forehead. He looks tired a bit, skin a little puffy and pale.

He looks real, is the thing that Harry notices. Not made up or overdone.

“What about you?” Harry asks. “Late night?”

His finger hovers over the button to snap a picture, but it feels wrong. To take a piece of Louis without his permission. He looks less guarded than he did last Sunday, with his sharp eyes and slow smile that Harry has stared at a hundred times on his laptop. He looks softer now, and Harry wants to see how that translates to film, with the trees setting the backdrop and Louis’ cheeks flushed from the cold.

But he lowers his camera anyway, just so he’s not tempted.

“Working,” Louis tells him. “Just got off a few hours ago actually.”

“So you haven’t slept?”

“Isn’t this meant to be the city that never sleeps?” Louis asks. He’s teasing now, his lips quirked and his eyebrows raised. His eyes flick to the coffee cups sitting next to Harry. “You really need two of those?” He doesn’t ask before he’s reaching over Harry’s torso, snatching the heavier cup that’s still hot, steam coming off the top in billows. “Cheers, mate. I’m about dead on my feet.”

“Do you make a habit of stealing coffee from strangers?”

“Only the cute ones, Harold.”

“Not short for Harold.”

“Boring.”

Harry stares down at his camera so his eyes don’t trace over the trace of scruff of Louis’ jaw, the shadowed angles of his face, his nose, the way his hair falls. He can’t help but think of Louis in terms of a photograph, of something still and quiet, his energy squeezing out of the edges of the picture and infused in the lines around his eyes and the curve of his mouth.

“Can I take a picture of you?” Harry asks. “Is that okay?”

Louis blinks slow, his fringe falling into his eyes. “Another one?”

Harry nods, lifting up on his knees for a better angle. “Just one more.”

“One more,” Louis repeats. He looks bewildered for a second, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his body anymore.

“Just--” Harry shifts over, his hands pushing at the sudden stiffness in Louis’ shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything,” Harry tells him. “I just want to get what you look like right now.”

“Exhausted?”

“Real.”

Louis rolls his eyes then, but he relaxes a bit, the tension shifting out from his shoulders and he settles back on his hands. “Go on then,” he says. “Make sure you get my good side.”

There’s no such thing as a good side, Harry wants to say. People are full of imperfections, big cheeks and crooked noses and bad angles that turn into such interesting and uniques photographs. He doesn’t say that though, instead he moves closer to Louis, focuses his lense on the way Louis looks up at him, all blue eyes and dark smudges and a million stories to tell.

The camera goes off with a _click_ and Harry shuffles back out of Louis’ space. “Wasn’t horrible, was it?”

“It was awful,” Louis says. “There was a scary man with a camera.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever described me as scary.”

“Terrifying, Harold,” Louis tells him. “It’s the curls.” He tugs on one of them, mouth quirking when it bounces back. “Who knows what evil lurks in the curls of men?”

“Oh my God,” Harry says. “That was awful.”

Louis laughs and rolls up to his feet. “You’re awful,” he teases. “You’ve almost made me late for work.”

“Thought you just got off work?”

“People can have more than one job, you do realize?” Louis shuffles his bag over his shoulder, checking his phone and putting an earphone in.

“Then when do you go to class?”

Louis raises his eyebrows down at Harry. “I don’t go to class.”

“Ever?”

“Never ever, young Harold.”

Harry rolls his eyes but stands too, his trousers damp from the grass and his hair a bit wet. “Eighteen’s not that young.”

“And twenty’s not that old, right?” Louis says. “You’re a babe, Harry.”

“A babe, yeah?”

“You know what I mean.” Louis sticks his tongue and starts walking away. “Stop making me late for work.”

Harry watches him for a bit, the way he finally turns frontways and throws a leg over his bike. “Hey, wait a second,” Harry yells, and suddenly his legs are moving and Louis’ looking back at him. “Last time you said you weren’t looking for anything--”

“I’m just not--”

“But could you use another friend?” Harry asks. “I’m by myself here and I--” He shrugs, shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t look up. “I don’t know anyone.”

Louis sighs, his eyes rolling and his mouth turned down. “For fuck’s sake, give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Your _phone_ , Harold.” Louis snatches it out of Harry’s hands, thumbs tapping heavy on the keys. “There. I’ll probably take a few hours to text you back and I never check my voicemails but. There.”

_Louis Tomlinson_

_718-222-5555_

“Do you--”

“Nope, I have to go now,” Louis says. He gets back on his bike, one leg down to steady himself before he starts pedalling away. “And you owe me a game next time.”

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

have you ever heard of the kooks? perfect music for crying over macroeconomics :) :) :)

-

To: **Harold Styles**

never heard of them. have you ever heard cry me a river by justin timberlake?

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

central park is a nightmare during the week. so many dogs?? it’s very hard to take a picture of a dog.

-

To: **Harold Styles**

ill have u know dogs are very camera shy, learned that on the telly

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

i was going to complain about having too much work to do but i suppose you have actual work to do, yeah?

-

To: **Harold Styles**

glad you caught urself mate, speaking of, time to clock in :( :( :( :(

\-----

-

Zayn is making chicken noodle soup, Louis’ favorite, for dinner when Louis drags himself in from closing up the bagel shop down on Court Street.

“Hungry?” he asks, holding an arm out for Louis to snuggle into. He smells like a club, sweat and alcohol and perfume. It’s still Zayn though, so Louis presses his face into Zayn’s neck and breathes in slow. “Lou? You alright?”

“’m fine,” Louis says. He watches Zayn cut up chicken and carrots and potatoes and celery. “We have enough money for all that?”

Zayn shrugs, tightens the fingers he has running through the hair at the base of Louis’ neck. “I wanted to do something nice for you,” he says. “This is your favorite.”

The thing about Zayn is that under the too big army jackets and the chain-smoking, he’s unbearably caring. Sometimes Louis forgets that Zayn had three sisters he used to have to look out for. He forgets Zayn used to be softer around the edges, before New York, before Louis wanted to run away and Zayn hadn’t hesitated to follow. Louis forgets sometimes that he’s the reason for the smudges under Zayn’s eyes, the sharpness of his ribs and the stress that always seems to hide in the lines of his forehead and in between the tremors in his hands that the cigarettes used to calm.

“Thank you,” Louis manages, pulling away before his grip gets too tight and he won’t be able to let go. “Want me to set the table?”

Zayn snorts, elbowing Louis in the side. “That’s the least you could do, brat,” he says. “It’s not like I’m making you dinner or anything.”

They eat in their makeshift dining room, with their table with the two wobbly legs and chairs that dig into the bottom of Louis’ thighs. The soup is warm though, pushing out the chill from the flat and settling heavy in their bellies.

They mold themselves on the couch later, the TV blaring something shitty off one of the local channels, and Louis curses everything that they can’t afford cable.

“Everything is such shit,” he complains, flipping through while Zayn shifts on top of him and gets comfortable. “Nothing’s ever on.”

“Keep this,” Zayn murmurs, when Louis finds a CSI rerun. “Have we seen this one yet?”

“Might as well watch and find out.”

Louis’ phone buzzes three times during the episode, loud and jarring each time. He doesn’t bother checking them because he already knows who they’re from.

“Anything important?” Zayn asks.

Louis shakes his head and keeps his eyes on the TV. “No, just some guy.”

“What guy?”

“No one, I promise,” Louis tells him. “It’s not important.”

Zayn stares at him. Louis can feel it on the side of his face, intense and probing. “It’s okay if it is, you know?” Zayn says quietly. “Important, I mean. That would be okay.”

“But it’s not important,” Louis tells him again. “Promise.”

Zayn drops it, and Louis resolutely ignores his phone.

And if he waits until Zayn is asleep to check the texts, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, well, no one has to know.

Especially not Zayn.

Especially not Harry.

-

\-----

To: **Harold Styles**

stop txting me and go study or something!

\-----

The two coffees becomes a thing.

Louis kicking Harry’s arse at football becomes a thing.

Sundays become a thing.

\-----

Sometimes Harry walks to the coffeeshop and takes the subway down to Central Park just to feel the jangling of the train over the tracks. It reminds him of catching the tube at home with friends, drunken hands gripping tight to the rails and sprawling out in the plastic seats after a night out.

It reminds him of Friday night rides into London in his best jeans, palms sweaty and heart racing at the thought of spending a few hours with Nick, sometimes a weekend, if everything went the right way. Most of the time it ended with them being absolutely smashed, Harry red-faced and happy and pushing his fingers under Nick’s button-up. The subways reminds him of Nick, and Harry feels guilty about it, but he also doesn’t stop.

He always meet Louis in the same spot. Sometimes Louis will be there a little later, if he didn’t have to work Saturday night and decided to spend the morning sleeping in. Those times Louis shows up fresh-faced and bright, his grin almost manic and his energy only curbed by kicking a ball around and leaving Harry trailing behind.

Harry likes those mornings, because Louis talks more. Talks about his sisters back in Doncaster (he’s got five) and his mates and his jobs and his Zayn.

And it’s always that. His Zayn. And Harry wonders but he doesn’t ask. Not yet.

But he does wonder.

“My Zayn and I’ve got a flat over in Brooklyn,” Louis tells him. “Bit shit and it’s cold as bollocks in there right now, but it’s home.” He kicks past Harry, barely out of breath as he watches the ball go through the goal. “Christ, are you getting worse at this?”

It’s possible. Harry’s not that good at football to begin with, and he gets distracted by the landscape, the buildings, the dew on the grass, the shadows of the trees and the angle at which the leaves fall. He gets distracted by Louis’ stories, the way his hands move when he talk, how his eyes brighten in the right light.

Harry takes pictures almost incessantly, and Louis will play along if he’s in the right mood.

There’s one on Harry’s laptop that’s a favorite. It’s from a Sunday morning, earlier than normal, before sunrise. Harry remembers it being colder than usual, so he stuck his beanie on and a scarf Liam’s mum knit him before he left in the summer.

“For those cold city days,” she had said, and it smells like her still, a bit. Like Liam and home and Britain.

And Louis had texted Harry to meet him a bit early. It hadn’t been a problem, because it’s hard to sleep in a city so big and Harry had already been awake, staring at his clock and wishing the streets outside looked a little bit more like Holmes Chapel instead of New York City. So he’d bundled up and walked through the empty streets to Central Park, his music going and

_in their eyes is the place that you finally discovered_

_that you love it here, you’ve got to stay_

coming through his earphones and cutting through the quiet morning.

Louis had already been at the park. “Just got off work,” he’d said. “Give me my coffee and sit down, would you?”

And they’d watched the sunrise, tongues heavy with the bitter taste of coffee and their fingers shoved under their sleeves. Harry had reached down for his camera, to catch the sun peeking through the trees, but instead he’d caught a bit of Louis too, tinged orange and pink from the sky. His beanie had been pulled back and his eyes were wide and his face had been enraptured, really.

And so Harry hasn’t decided what he wants to do with that picture, so he just keeps it saved to his laptop, unedited and untouched.

Sometimes Louis shows up earlier than Harry, tired from a long shift and eyelids drooping.

“Too tired to sleep,” he says, and at some point that starts to make sense to Harry. “Come on, Harry, distract me.”

And on these days Harry will tell Louis about Holmes Chapel. About cobblestone roads and the pubs on the street corners and his mum’s peppermint tea, because fuck, he misses it.

He talks about Liam. Sensible and disapproving and careful Liam. And Louis laughs and says he doesn’t think Liam would like him very much, but Harry thinks otherwise. Harry thinks of the way Louis works so many jobs and talks about taking care of his sisters and how he’s struggling to make it here in New York City but he _is_ making it, and Harry thinks Louis might be a bit more sensible than he wants to let on.

“What sort of trouble did you get up to back home, hmm?” Louis asks. “You’ve got a face like an angel but I bet you did all sorts of damage, yeah?”

“What do you mean?”

Louis shrugs, closes his eyes and lets the sun warm his skin. “Dunno. Break any laws?” He steals Harry’s coffee once he finishes his own, wrinkling his nose at all the sugar. “Break any hearts?”

“Never,” Harry says, because he doesn’t, because he _wouldn’t_ , but that doesn’t stop him from thinking about Nick. Thinking about London and summer nights and liquor and the way Nick had looked when he said Harry would be a heartbreaker one day. Used to say that every time Harry asked to take a picture of him. “What about you?”

And Louis laughs, tired and strained and Harry snaps a picture of that too. The lines in his forehead and the heavy way his eyelids sit. He takes a picture of Louis’ hair splayed messy over his forehead and the fracture of a smile on his face.

“Just my own, Harold,” and he throws the ball at Harry then, eyes narrowed. “Come on, up. I want to see if I can take you three for three.”

“Pretty sure you’ve beaten me more than three times in a row.”

“Nah,” Louis says. “Remember that one week I let you win because you failed your statistics exam?”

Harry scowls, getting to his feet. “Cheers for that, Louis. Really.”

“Aw, come on,” he tosses the ball in Harry’s direction, already running back a bit to give him some space to move the ball around. “I’m sure you can beat me today. You’ve got like eight hours of sleep on me already.”

He laughs, like he’s actually going to go easy on Harry for once. It’s a trap though, because Harry’s learned that Louis doesn’t go easy on _anyone_.

And Louis wins, and Harry gets a photo of the ridiculous victory pose he pulls, tired and a little slap-happy and grinning before he has to bike off to work.

Harry saves that picture too, because Louis has grass stuck to his knees and in his hair. He smiles at Harry on a Sunday morning and he’s just one person but Harry doesn’t feel so alone anymore.

Not on Sundays anyway.

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

thought i saw your beanie yesterday near times square. it wasn’t you though

-

To: **Harold Styles**

as if i’d ever be caught dead in times sq

\-----

Harry takes the subway more during the week, at weird hours of the night and early in the mornings, when the silence of his dorm is too much and Louis takes far too long to answer his texts.

He likes reading the graffiti on the walls, the bright colors that stain the smudged and faded white of it all. Some of it’s typical, so cliche that Harry doesn’t bother. But some of it seems like it means something, something in how the letters seems to sit heavier, words like

_be wise_

and

_question everything_

and

so many names, sprayed and plastered with a semi-permanence on the walls, so many bits and pieces of different people left in different parts of New York City.

Harry gets it all, hearing the satisfying click of a photo captured and another faceless part of someone to put down in his album as a part of the city. It seems silly, for people to leave themselves vulnerable like this, to let an impulsive urge to rebel force them to give away something close, something that’s stuck up on a wall for anyone to see.

For someone to wash away, as if they were never there at all.

Down here in the subways is the only time Harry lets himself think about Nick. With the rattling of the train cars and his camera tucked safely in his hand, Harry stretches out in the hard, plastic seats and thinks of fingers pressing down on skin. He thinks of drunken, wet kisses on his neck somewhere just like this, in an empty train car at a stupid time of the night, with both of them reeking of liquor and their cheeks flushed and Nick’s quiff losing height and---

Harry always wanted to take pictures of Nick when he looked like that, soft and open and floppy and beautiful, really. He didn’t carry his camera when they went out clubbing, but he’d fetch his phone, drunkenly reminding himself he’d need to edit later.

“I want to keep you like this,” he’d say. His hands were shaky as he held his phone up, but Nick would press closer, press his wrists down and slip Harry’s phone out of his grasp. “Nick, come on, I want to take your picture.”

“I know,” Nick would say. He’d be slurring, never did anything halfway, including getting smashed. “Did you know you can keep a picture forever?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Nick would shake his head, pressing hands and fingers under Harry’s shirt and kissing down his neck, his jaw, nipping at his chin. “You’re going to break my heart one day, Harry Styles,” he’d said, he’d _always_ said. “Then what will you want with a picture of little old me?”

Harry had given up, too preoccupied with the mouth against his skin and the fingers teasing at the waist of his trousers. “Not going to break your heart.”

And Harry was too drunk and distracted to realize that Nick had never made such a promise.

He only thinks about that on the subways though. Once the train stops and he steps out into a quiet crowd of early morning workers or late night partiers on their way home, Harry forces it from his mind. Focusing on the skyline and the jagged outlines of buildings reaching up to meet it.

He focuses on people sleeping in front of closed-up shops, of women with red, red lips and men with suits and ties. He catches them in motion, the click of a heel against pavement, the tapping fingers against a screen, snaps photos of New York at different times of the day and the people that inhabit it, loud and quiet and sleeping sideways on benches and trains.

Harry gets it all, until finally exhaustion hits him too, and the energy that bubbles under his skin finally settles. And so Harry becomes one of those people sleeping on the train, the rattling of the tracks fading into the background as Harry himself becomes another part of the city.

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

there are some very interesting people on the tube

-

To: **Harold Styles**

shouldn’t you be doing your homework

-

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

i like this better

\-----

The university is alive with faces too, blurred expressions in a crowd and distinct features that Harry can’t help but capture as he walks through campus.

That’s how he meets Niall. Blonde hair shining platinum under the streetlights and his cheeks flushed with red and pink and genuine innocence and Harry has a finger over the shutter before he even thinks about it.

“Do you mind?” he asks, and Niall shrugs in that way that Harry will get used to soon enough.

Niall’s got braces that Harry knows will be reflected off the lights when he goes to edit these pictures later. He smiles when Harry holds his camera up, smiles like he’s posing for a yearbook and has such a sincerity about him and Harry wonders if that will show up in the pictures too.

Niall laughs when Harry apologizes for taking his picture, fingers fumbling over the camera now that he’s done.

“What are you going to do with those?”

Niall’s got an accent on him, strong and Irish and familiar enough that Harry likes him almost instantly.

So Harry shows Niall his room, shows him the photos tacked up on the wall and saved on his computer and shaded over in sepia and black and white and splashes of color. And Niall’s a stranger but he has a name now, has a few pages in Harry’s album and so Harry lets him see. Lets him runs his fingers over the edges of the pictures of the Empire State Building and the corner of Fifth Avenue and the blur of a high heel clicking against the sidewalk.

“Who’s this then?” Niall asks, pointing to a few pictures of Louis that Harry has finished editing. Ones of him with grass in his hair, one from a cold morning and Harry’s scarf wrapped around Louis’ neck like a lifeline, bringing out the blue in his eyes and the bronze of his skin.

And it takes Harry a moment to say, “That’s Louis,” before he realizes that’s all he can say. “He’s a friend, that’s all.” That’s all, and Harry swallows hard, the truth of it getting stuck in his throat.

“You should tell him,” Niall says, before he moves on to the photos of people on the tube, rowdy and loud and practically bursting out of their dimensions. “How long have you been doing this?”

Harry shrugs, his eyes following Niall around the room. He would look good on camera. His ruddy cheeks and his profile and the way his blonde hair is muddy with brown at the roots, if you look closely enough. “As long as I can remember.”

Niall hums, his lips tilting up into a smile as he fingers over the pictures from the dogs at the park, some wet and dripping and others prim and proper and they all have the same look of dumb curiosity as they stare up into the camera. “Photography major, right?”

“Economics.”

Niall looks at the textbooks scattered over Harry’s desk, the scribbled notes and the angry, red corrections and the calculator jammed full of equations and cheats that Harry’s still trying to understand. “We need to get you drunk, mate.”

-

Niall shows Harry a different side of New York.

Niall knows clubs. It’s unlike the ones back in Holmes Chapel, the ones with bass-infused music and flashing lights and girls stuck to the walls and waiting for someone to make the first move.

They get in with no problems. Niall knows the guy at the door and Harry’s charmed himself into shadier places than this. He knows how to make his grin dirty and when to make it sweet, when to lower his eyelids just enough to fuck or be fucked. He knows his way around the sweet smell of liquor and the sticky floors and writhing bodies on a dance floor.

This club is dark, the music loud and pulsing under Harry’s skin. He sticks close to Niall, fingers tangled in Niall’s shirt and following in his steps. Niall seems to know everyone, stopping to kiss someone’s cheek or to wrap a hand around their waist for a quick squeeze. He’s loud and he’s charming and Harry almost envies how clean Niall seems to make it. It’s not murmured promises and drunken pick-ups or sneaky fingers trailing over skin. Niall is all smiles and laughs and enough sincerity to make Harry’s teeth hurt.

“What do you drink??” Niall asks once they make their way to the bar.

“Tequila,” Harry says and he grins when Niall raises his eyebrows. “You said you needed me drunk.”

“Can you hold it?” Niall asks him.

Nick used to ask the same thing, no matter how many times they went out and he watched Harry get shit-faced. _Can you hold it?_ And Harry always expected him to be smug when he’d inevitably end up holding Harry’s hair back in the middle of the night, nose wrinkled and lips thinned.

Instead he always looked so resigned. Frustrated, even, when Harry could finally lift his head up without vomiting.

“Keep forgetting how young you are,” Nick would always say. “My little heartbreaker.”

Harry knocks back the shot Niall gives him, his chest burning from the alcohol and the back of his tongue bitter. “I can hold it,” he says, and he puts on a grin and orders another. “We need to get me drunk.”

So they do.

Niall gets louder as the night goes on, his face getting red and it spreads to his neck and his chest. His hand is warm at the small of Harry’s back, guiding him through the club and introducing him to everyone they come past.

Harry feels his limbs loosening up as the night goes on, his words slower and his steps heavier and he leans into Niall when they settle into a booth with a few of Niall’s mates on the other side.

“Are you with Nialler, then?” one of them asks, and Harry grins slow, all teeth and drunken confidence. “You’re a lot prettier than the girls he usually goes for.”

“Fuck off,” Niall slurs, his laugh loud and and bright in Harry’s ear. “Our Harry here is a taken man.”

Harry shakes his head and presses close enough to feel the vibrations in Niall’s chest when he laughs, the heat from his body and the press of their thighs together. “’m not taken,” he mumbles, breathes in the smell of the club that clings to Niall’s jumper. “’m all yours tonight, _Nialler_.”

Niall laughs again, shifting to accommodate Harry’s liquor-heavy limbs. He’s drunk too, Harry can see it in the glaze in his eyes and the ruddy color in his cheeks and the way his hair sticks to his forehead a bit. “Tell that to the lad in those pictures you’ve got up in your room,” Niall says.

Harry shakes his head again, sitting up a bit so he can reach his phone. “That’s just Louis.”

“ _Just_ Louis,” Niall repeats. “Is that who’re texting?”

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

i made a new friend!!

\-----

To: **Harold Styles**

replaced me already, harold?

\-----

Harry slides out of the booth, climbing over Niall’s thighs and leaving a smacking kiss on his cheek.

“Be right back,” he says, and he hears, “He’s a flirty little thing, isn’t he,” before he stumbles into the hallway near the toilets.

The walls are sticky and a little gross, like the way most clubs are, and Harry leans against one for balance. His tongue feels heavy and lips feel numb as he listens to the ring on his phone, barely loud enough to hear over the beat of the music and the people pressed in close around him in the hallway.

“Harry?” Louis finally answers, voice sounding tinny through the speaker and muffled against Harry’s ear. “Everything alright?”

Harry laughs a bit, eyes shifting behind him to see where Niall and his friends are still at the table. “Could never replace you, you know,” he says. “Impossible.”

Louis snorts, obnoxious and disbelieving over the line. “Did you actually call to say that? I was joking, Harold.”

Harry blinks a few times, until his vision clears a bit and he can focus on Louis’ voice on the phone. “We should have breakfast tomorrow,” he says decisively.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Louis tells him. “You’re a day early.”

“Are we only allowed to see each other on Sunday then?”

There’s a pause on the phone, and Harry glances down to make sure they’re still connected. He looks back at the table, where Niall and his mates are ordering another round, loud and rowdy. It’s the first time Harry’s been out like this since he’s been in New York, the first time he’s hung out with people his own age outside of a lecture hall or through a computer screen.

And he’s crammed in a hallway away from it all, the tequila having knocked out his sense a few shots back. He’s pressed against a wall and he’s giving too much of himself to a beautiful boy (again--because he didn’t learn the first time) and he knows it but he won’t stop. He’s known it since the first picture he took of Louis, with the way his eyes looked so sad and the edges of his lips curled up and Harry couldn’t look away.

“Harry--”

“Don’t,” Harry says. “Fuck, Louis. I--” It’s hard to get his thoughts together, the alcohol running hot through his blood, the music thumping a steady beat against his skull. “I just want to see you. That’s it. I don’t--”

Someone bumps into him, knocks him against the wall and it takes Harry a second to regain his balance.

His composure, what little of it he’s clinging to.

“I’m drunk,” he ends up saying. “Fuck, I’m so drunk.”

Louis sighs. He’s probably tired, Harry thinks. Probably just got off work, maybe. “Are you with anyone?” Louis asks. “Have you got a way home? I’ve only got my bike but your skinny arse will fit on the back.”

“I’m with a friend,” Harry says. He glances back just to make sure Niall’s still there. He catches sight of the blonde under the club lights and turns back around, huddled over his phone and suddenly exhausted. “I’ll be fine.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, and Harry tries to count the seconds in his head, gets to seven before he gives up and closes his eyes instead.

“I really like you, you know,” Harry murmurs. “As stupid as that is.”

He doesn’t really know what to expect, just listens to Louis breathing on the other side of the receiver, sounding close as ever but Harry knows the space between them is more than just blocks or miles or even measurable in distance. He knows it with the way Louis sighs again, shaky and tired and resigned.

He knows it with the way Louis says, “I really like you too, Harry,” and the line goes quiet. Dead.

Harry pockets his phone, crossing the bar back to the booth.

“Alright?” Niall asks. “Looking a bit peaky, mate.”

Harry shakes his head. “Think I’m gonna head back,” he says. His head hurts and his stomach is rolling and his phone is burning a hole in his pocket, it feels like. Heavy with the weight of stupid decisions and silence.

He thinks Niall might be saying something, but the music is too loud and his arms and legs feel like lead and he stumbles out onto the street, breathing in the cold air deep until it burns his lungs. He trips over his own feet trying to get back to his dorm, his head swimming and the liquor too sweet in the back of his throat. His hands shake around his keycard as he fumbles around with his other hand for his keys, uncoordinated and clumsy in the harsh dorm lighting.

Nick’s not here to hold his hair back now. Now, Harry only remembers the feel of Nick’s spindly fingers pushing Harry’s damp curls back, his low voice murmuring nonsense until Harry calmed down.

Now there’s nothing but the sound of Harry’s harsh breathing echoing off the walls, the choked sounds being forced from his throat every time his stomach contracts.

_Can you hold it?_

Somehow Harry manages to call Liam, the gruff sound of sleep in his voice the closest thing Harry has to home. Liam doesn’t bother scolding Harry like usual, doesn’t remind him of the cost of the call or how mad his mum will be, just tells Harry he’ll be alright, _just calm down, you’ll be alright, Harry_ until Harry’s just coming up empty, his stomach settling and his fingers loosening around the rim of the toilet.

Harry listens to Liam tell him that everything will be alright, just drink some water and go to sleep. Liam doesn’t press him about anything, doesn’t ask for answers or why Harry’s drank so much. He doesn’t ask who Harry’s gone stupid for now, because there’s always a reason and there’s always someone.

He listens to Liam until his eyelids get too heavy and his breathing slows, his forehead pressed up against the cool porcelain and his hands shaking around the phone.

He closes his eyes and it hurts.

\-----

-

Zayn doesn’t say anything when he finds Louis on the couch early Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and staring blankly at the telly. He’s still got his work clothes on, smelling like the remnants of a club and smoke and the blankets he’s got wrapped around him.

Zayn grabs a box of wine from the fridge, the really cheap kind that tastes like piss and sticks to the back of Louis’ throat. He pours them two glasses and Louis another when he empties his immediately.

“Is anything on the telly ?” he asks, pushing Louis over so he can fit on the couch. “Or are we watching infomercials all day again?”

Louis’ mouth curls up at that, hidden under the blankets. “National Treasure is on,” he mumbles.

“Sweet,” Zayn says. “Shove your arse over so I can watch. D’ya want more wine?”

Zayn looks tired, bags under his eyes and his skinny wrists peeking out from the hoodie he’s thrown on. He’d still been asleep when Louis had come in earlier, quiet in the still morning but too tired to fall asleep. Louis scoots over, sticks himself to the back of the couch so Zayn can fit. “Just come cuddle with me,” he says.

It’s warm beneath the blankets, both of them tangled together and sharing heat. Zayn doesn’t ask him anything. He just waits. He holds on to Louis tight, strong and loyal like he’s always been and Louis loves him, he does. Loves him more than anyone.

“I lied,” he says. “Before.”

And Zayn’s known him long enough not to get worried yet, not to pull away yet because Louis needs him and sometimes it feels like Zayn is the only person he has and it’s _scary_ to think that he could have someone else.

Could have Harry.

“I met someone,” he goes on. “And he’s silly and he doesn’t even have a job, Zayn, it’s awful. He just goes to class all day. And he--he takes pictures. Not for show and not for money. He just--takes pictures. Of beautiful things, he told me once. He takes pictures of beautiful things.” Louis swallows hard, inhaling the smell of Zayn’s hair gel and cigarette smoke and sleep. “And then he took a picture of me.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything for a moment. He lifts his head to stare at Louis, level and knowing because Zayn knows _him_ , inside and out it feels like sometimes. “You said it wasn’t important,” he says eventually. “That night your phone kept going off.”

“It wasn’t important then,” Louis tells him. “It doesn’t have to be important now. I just--”

“Like him,” Zayn finishes.

“He has _curls_ ,” Louis whines. “And these terrible green eyes. I’m starting to think he’s not human, actually.”

Zayn snorts, resting his head back on Louis’ chest. “How long has this been going on, then?” He murmurs into Louis’ shirt, and the _you wanker_ bit is left off, but Louis hears it anyway.

“Too long.”

Zayn shifts until he’s comfortable again, and Louis doesn’t complain when his cold hands slip up his shirt or how his sharp limbs dig into Louis’ skin. “Do you want to talk about it?”

It’s Sunday morning and the sun has just finished rising.

There are probably the same haggard bikers Louis sees every Sunday morning, riding through the streets and avoiding the traffic. There’s the bakery that Louis passes once a week, fresh with the smell of rising bread and hot chocolate and coffee. Louis thinks about stopping sometimes, because he needs caffeine to get through his long Sunday shifts. But he doesn’t, because Harry always brings a second cup.

Two sugars and a packet of cream.

But Zayn’s here today, half-asleep and warm and safe. And Louis can still hear Harry’s voice on the phone, slurred a bit and tired but as genuine as everything else Harry is.

_I really like you, you know._

“Not right now,” Louis says. Because it’s safe here and he’s not ready to give that up.

-

\-----

Harry wasn’t really expecting Louis to show up anyway. He throws the second coffee cup in the trash on the way home.

It’s fine.

\-----

“Do you ever think about doing anything with these?” Niall asks. He’s laid out on Harry’s bed, flipping through the album and gesturing at the photographs set all over the room. “Or are you just gonna stick ‘em all in here?”

Harry shrugs, his eyes scanning over his latest problem set. Niall’s pretty useless when it comes to academics, Harry’s learned

(“I haven’t picked a major yet,” Niall says. “Too lazy to be doing all the work you do.”)

but he makes for a good distraction.

“Like what? Put them online or something?”

Niall shrugs, holding up one of the pages Harry keeps his subway pictures on. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

He flips through the pictures of Louis. Ones of him in the early morning light, bright-eyed and smiling or soft and tired and he wasn’t _there_ and Louis misses Sundays sometimes, when he covers someone’s shift or he needs his sleep too much to fuck around with a football.

But Harry knows this is different. Knows he hasn’t heard from Louis in days and he probably won’t.

“What about him?” Niall says. “Has he seen these?”

Harry keeps his eyes on his work, forces his fingers to keep writing and his face to stay blank. “Some people get a little creeped out when they see how many pictures I’ve taken of them. It’s obsessive, someone told me once.”

“I think it’s nice.”

Harry smiles then, because he doesn’t think Niall’s got a cruel bone in his body. “You’re not most people, Nialler.”

“I just think,” Niall starts, “that it would be cool if you did something with all these. Instead of hanging them up in your room like a serial killer or something.”

Harry sighs. He’s accumulated more pictures than he realized; he’s almost at the end of his album, got more pictures of Louis than he knows that to do with. Got more pictures of the city when it wakes up and when it goes to sleep and all the hours and people in between.

“I had a show back home,” he says. “It was at this really divey place my--my friend had a friend who had a place,” Harry says. “It was nice, I guess. Having people see my pictures.”

Niall nods, closing the album with a decisive nod. “Cool. I’ll have to ask around but I’m sure I know someone who can get you in the student gallery or something.”

“Don’t you have to be, like, in the art program for that?”

Niall shrugs, looking unconcerned. He always seems to look unconcerned. “I know people.”

And he always seem to know _everyone_.

\-----

Harry manages a week before Liam forces him to talk.

He’s in the library (he’s always in the library) when his Skype lights up and Liam’s face flashes across the screen.

“Hey, Li,” Harry says. The last time he talked to Liam he was drunk and throwing up and--

it’s not like Liam’s not seen him like that before, not seen him handle heartbreak because he has but--

Still.

Liam looks ready for bed, rumpled and soft and in his pyjamas. “You’re going to tell me a story,” he says. “About why you called me like that last week.”

Harry shrugs. “I was just a little drunk. Nothing to worry about.”

“Harry--”

“Liam, I promise, okay? It was nothing.”

“I can still tell when you’re lying, you know,” Liam says. “You’ve always been awful at it.”

Harry shrugs. There’s no point in lying, he knows, because he is awful at it and Liam is always able to tell. “I met someone.”

Liam blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, _Harry_. I thought--”

“I know. I know you told me not to get involved with anyone and I didn’t, but I met Louis and I--” Harry shrugs again. “I really like him, Li.”

“And he hurt you,” Liam says. “That’s why you were such a wreck. This is just like--”

“Louis is _not_ like Nick.”

Liam cuts himself off, his jaw clenched and his lips thinned.

“It’s not like that,” Harry says. “Nobody hurt me. Nick didn’t even hurt me. That was my own fault.”

Liam sighs, peering at Harry through the grainy screen that separates them. “What happened, then.”

And the thing is, Harry doesn’t _know_. “I told him I liked him and he said he liked me too,” Harry says. “And now everything’s changed, I suppose. I don’t think I was meant to start having feelings.”

“No, probably not,” Liam agrees. “What are you going to do now?”

“Can we talk about something else?” Harry asks. “What have you been doing?”

Liam sighs but he tells Harry about swim team and track and _Ruth’s gone and got herself engaged, did I tell you, some bloke from London with an accent as posh as yours_ and he lets Harry forget about Louis and Central Park and the city and all the work he has to do. And for a little bit, it feels like Harry’s back home, away from all this.

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

can we talk

\-----

Louis doesn’t show up on Sunday again.

It’s getting colder now, so Harry sits on one of the benches with his knitted scarf and his wool coat and a heavier beanie, the floppy kind. He waits for Louis (stupidly, hopefully, desperately) until the tips of his fingers go numb and his nose burns. His presses his fingers around his coffee cup, lets the steam and the heat warm his hands and he looks out at all the people.

Louis doesn’t show up and eventually both the coffee cups go cold.

\-----

It turns out that Niall does know people.

Niall knows Justin. Justin, who picks up Harry’s photos by their edges, who asks about filters and pixelation and gets that editing isn’t just taking out the red eyes. Justin, who flips through Harry’s album and can point out places in the city just by the chandeliers in the ceilings or the underrated Italian place next door that Harry decided to capture through his lens.

Justin, who books all the students in the gallery.

“This is cool shit,” he says. “Better than half the shit they put up in the gallery anyway.”

Justin takes an hour to go through all Harry’s photos, picking out the ones he think should be enlarged and blown up and showcased. The subway photos, people asleep in the trains, dressed up and dressed down and not dressed at all. The early morning ones, of business suits and coffee and the sharp strides of people trying to make it to work, the hurry in their gait being captured by the blur of fast-paced heels against the sidewalk and the sun reflecting off the faces of their expensive watches.

He pauses over the ones of Louis, because there are so many and Harry wonders if it’s obvious how hard he’s fallen. If Justin can see it in the angle of Louis’ jaw and the way his fringe falls, if it’s obvious that he’s someone Harry could fall in love with. In the way that Louis smiles, that stupid one with all the teeth, if anyone else can know that Harry smiled back so helplessly.

“These too?” Justin asks. He’s careful with them, his fingers ghosting over the shadows and the sunlight and Harry realizes how much time he spent on these, making sure the colors matched the memories in his head, the blues bright enough and the brown in Louis’ hair just right.

Harry nods before he’s fully thought about it. “Yeah,” he says. “Definitely those.”

And so Niall comes along to help and Justin talks times and dates and numbers and _I definitely think people will come to see these. It’s like a side of New York people don’t even know about._

And suddenly Harry is planning for a show. He’s got to pick a theme and pictures and he’s got to edit and he’s got to tell Liam and his mum and he’s got to tell--

Louis.

 

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

can we talk

\-----

To: **Louis Tomlinson**

louis

\-----

Harry wakes up at ten on Sunday. It’s later than usual, but he’s not expecting anything (anyone) and he takes his time getting ready. There are flurries this morning, dusting the sidewalks and the tops of cars when Harry looks out his window.

He wraps his scarf around his neck, from Liam’s mum. The scent’s gone now. Now it just smells like his soap and coffee and the stale scent his dorm room carries. It doesn’t smell like home anymore, is the thing Harry realizes. It’s one less thing he has to remind himself of home.

Harry sleeps on the subway, his camera loose in his hands and his music blaring in his ears

_but don’t go, take my love,_

_I won’t let you, I’m saying please don’t go._

_Don’t go, take my love,_

_I won’t let you, I’m saying please don’t go_

until he sleeps two stops past and has to double back on foot.

He gets a bagel from that shop he usually walks past, gets a large cup of chai tea instead of his usual two coffees. The tea burns Harry’s tongue, but it’s _tea_ instead of the coffee he usually sugars up and tries to choke down, stripped of any real taste.

The runners have long gone from Central Park by now, Harry notices. The sun is bright, risen a few hours ago and boring down on Harry’s neck in a semblance of warmth. There are just a lot of kids now, bundled up kids and their parents and their dogs.

Harry puts his camera away.

“Reminds me of my house,” someone says. “All the kids, I mean.”

Harry lets out a slow breath, watches it puff out into the cold air.

“Your sisters,” he says. “Do you miss them?”

Louis hovers near the bench, but he doesn’t sit down and Harry doesn’t make room for him. “I email them everyday,” he confesses. “Phone calls are too expensive.”

Harry sighs, shifting over on the damp bench and holding out the other half of his bagel.

“Thanks, Harold,” Louis says, and he sits down and leaves enough room to set Harry on edge.

He takes a moment to look over Louis. He looks tired, but that could be from work, could be from anything. His fringe is down, plastered to his forehead by the flurries and his beanie and there are bags under his eyes, deep and stark against his skin and Harry wants to run a thumb over them, wants to kiss them away, maybe. Wants to be as gentle as he can with Louis, even though he knows Louis would probably kill him for it.

“Too tired to sleep?” Harry asks.

“Just couldn’t,” Louis says. “I’m too used to coming here now.”

“Then why did you stop?” Harry asks him. “I came here last week, week before that too. Waiting for you, I guess.”

Louis laughs, this awful thing that changes his whole face, makes him look so different that Harry’s fingers clench around his camera for a moment, just to capture the transformation. “You’ve never had anyone tell you no, have you?”

“You didn’t tell me no,” Harry points out. “You said you liked me.”

“I did,” Louis says. “I do. I just--you’re so young, Harry. You don’t know anything yet. You don’t know what it’s like to fail at something, and I--” Louis fidgets, his cheeks flushed with cold or frustration or both. “I don’t want to fail with you. Not like everything else.”

And he looks at Harry so expectantly, like Harry is supposed to just accept that. As if Harry is just some naive kid that doesn’t know a bloody thing about anything and Louis is just so--

“You’re full of shit, you know,” Harry says. “Like, for someone who doesn’t seem to take any shit, you’re certainly full of it.”

He gets some level of satisfaction out of the shocked expression on Louis’ face. The way his eyes widen and his mouth drops open. It’s slightly satisfying, to see him shut up so effectively.

“The guy I used to date, even fancied myself in love with him, you know,” Harry says, “he broke up with me in a club after I found him fucking some guy in the loo.” Harry hasn’t allowed himself to think about it really, had shut down the thoughts every time they creeped up on him in the middle of the night, kept wide awake by the city lights and the blur of late night traffic. “He called me heartbreaker every day for a year, and then he broke mine. So. I learned from that.”

Louis scoots closer, close enough that their sides are touching and Harry can feel their heat seeping together, warming them both up. “I’m sorry, Harry,” Louis says.

“I don’t want your apologies,” Harry mumbles. He’s tired. He’s tired and Louis is so close and Harry has a whole album for him. For his ridiculous face and his fringe and his stupid, blue eyes. “I want _you_ , you absolute arsehole.”

And Harry’s not sure what possesses him to do it, if anything possesses him to do it or if he’s just running on his own outrageous ideas, but he’s gripping Louis’ jaw, fingers tight against his skin and god, Louis is so _fucking_ stupid that Harry almost can’t stand it and he

well

he kisses him. On a late Sunday morning, Harry kisses him. And he tastes like all the sunlight and shadows and secrets and care that Harry has seen in the photographs. He tastes like the laughter that’s worn the crinkles by his eyes and he tastes like the sunbeams that have tanned his skin and he tastes like stolen tea and cream cheese and

Louis kisses back,

kisses Harry back.

And his fingers are shaking on Harry’s shoulders, and his eyes are wide open like he’s afraid to close them. And so Harry kisses him harder, digs his fingers in the meat of Louis’ thighs and presses in closer until he can almost feel Louis’ heartbeat, it seems like.

“I want you,” he murmurs, and Louis nods so dazedly that Harry has to pull away, just so he can see his whole face and not just the faint freckles on his nose and his stupid eyelashes. “Not just on Sundays.”

Louis blinks, moving back slowly and detangling his fingers from the grip they have on Harry’s shirt. “Harry, I--”

“Shut up,” Harry mutters. He stands up, brushes crumb from his coat and his jeans and pulls out the paper he stuck in his pocket this morning out of sheer, dumb hope. “I have a show. Like, an exhibit or whatever. Wednesday night.”

“For your photographs?” Louis asks. He’s staring at the paper in Harry’s outstretched hand, like he’s afraid to take it. “That’s huge, Harry.”

“It’s really not.” Harry shoves it over, makes sure Louis’ fingers are actually holding onto it so he doesn’t lose it. “It’s a small thing. Like, I’m not even sure if people will show up? But I’d like it if you did.”

He shoves his hands in pockets and waits. Staring at Louis through the flurries that fall and dust his eyelashes until he blinks them away.

“I’m late for work,” Louis says, distracted. He’s still staring at the paper, eyes scanning over the words over and over again. “You always make me late for work.”

Harry shrugs and pulls his hat down over his ears, fighting against the chill. “You make me a lot of things.”

Louis nods and swallows, and Harry follows the movement with his eyes, watching his throat move now that he can. Or maybe he can’t. But he does anyway. “I have to go.”

Harry watches him walk back to his bike, watches him fold the paper up slow and careful and stick it in his pocket before pedalling away.

And Harry doesn’t let himself hope, not right now, but if he did, well. He would.

\-----

-

It takes Louis fifteen minutes to straighten up the souvenir shop before he can lock up, and he spends it running around the store, out of breath and clumsy as he refolds shirts and puts away the last of the new stock.

His bag is slung half-hazardly over his shoulder, slipping off his arm as he pedals the ten blocks down to the gallery. The streets are crowded this time of night, when people are making the commute back home and blocking up the sidewalks and street corners.

His heart is pounding overtime, his breath coming out too fast and too loud as he looks for somewhere to lock up his bike. He barely knows where he’s going. He’s got a map of the campus Zayn printed out at the library in one hand and Harry’s flyer in the other, unbearably aware of the time and he knows he’s late, he knows.

There’s a public loo in the same building as the gallery, so Louis ducks in and attempts to change right there in front of the mirrors, pulling his only dress shirt out from his bag, wrinkled now, he realizes.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, laying it on the counter and trying to smooth out the wrinkles. “ _Fuck._ ”

He buttons it up over his work shirt, and when he looks in the mirror he can see the _I Heart NYC_ is bleeding through and as visible as anything. He rolls his eyes and concentrates on changing out of his jeans, shoving them in his bag and wrestling into his properly formal skinnies. He couldn’t fit in dress shoes as well, so he rolls his cuffs and slips his Toms back on and hope no one bothers to look at his feet.

His tie is on the counter, and for a second Louis panics. He wants to fit in, he wants to look good and make Harry happy because he’s having a proper _show_ for god’s sake.

His fingers fumble over the buttons on his phone, his heart beating too fast as he listens to the line ring.

“’lo?” Zayn says. “I thought you were at loverboy’s art show.”

“Tie or no tie?” Louis asks him, cradling the phone between his neck and his shoulder and already starting to drape the tie around his collar.

Zayn hums thoughtfully, and Louis loves him, he does, but right now he hates him. “I thought you said it started at seven? It’s nearly half past now, innit?”

“I’m _late_ ,” Louis snaps. “Tie or no tie, for fuck’s sake, Zayn.”

Zayn snorts, unaffected by the urgency in Louis voice. “Tie. Hey, are you coming back to the flat tonight?”

Louis freezes, half a knot draped over his throat. “Oh my god,” he says. “Do you think I’m going to have sex tonight?”

“Not if you’re any later than you are now, mate,” Zayn tells him. “It’s half past seven.”

Louis hangs up, tugging the knot too tight and near choking with it. He scans the map while he’s walking, checking all the doors before he happens upon the gallery.

The room is a decent size, the lighting bright so that all of Harry’s photographs have the perfect visibility, and Louis is immediately awed by how _lovely_ they all are. He steps into the room, squeezing past the people crowding by the main entrance and makes his way through the exhibit.

Harry has--a ton of pictures. There are pictures that Louis almost feels like he recognizes, just from the texts Harry sent right after he must have taken these. There are photographs of the subway, late at night and near empty, bright graffiti sprayed across the walls and on some of the seats. He remembers Harry’s texts in the middle of the night, about sleeping passengers and the club stragglers that line the cars of the train.

Louis picks out Times Square, and somehow Harry’s turned it into something more than a native’s worst nightmare. The lights are blurred a bit, dimmed and less revolting than usual. The crowds are still insane, and Louis wonders how long Harry stood in the midst of all that commotion just to capture a moment like that. Wonders how long Harry walked the streets and took pictures of the tourists and the wonder on their faces at being a part of something so fucking huge.

There are photographs of Central Park, on days sunny and wet and even dusted with snow. Louis recognizes the field they play football on, the makeshift goal that Harry had said was rigged, _obviously_. There’s a bakery shop, a Starbucks, a really divey club that screams of Harry, Louis can just tell.

There are people. There’s an old woman in front of a fruit cart, face weathered with age but she’s smiling, wide and remarkable. There’s a girl in a strappy dress and heels, lipstick and the works and fixing her mascara in a compact mirror. There’s a guy with glasses, too skinny with a wifebeater clinging to his torso and leather pants slipping off his hips.

There’s a blonde, Louis sees, grinning stupidly into the camera and Louis can’t help but smile back, for just a second. He looks happy, nose wrinkling with it as he stares into the camera with his braces shining off the lamp light.

Louis walks past them all, eyes catching on the angles and the colors and how real they all look, even trapped in a photograph. He walks around the whole right side of the room before he reaches a sign that says _Beautiful Things_ and there’s,

well,

there’s Louis. His face is blown up to fit the new dimensions of the photographs. That’s his beanie and his red skinnies and his face looking back at him and Louis gapes, stunned for a second. He looks happy in some of these, almost giddy. He looks exhausted in some others, face pale and his mouth turned down.

Harry’s got him running after a football, grass sticking to the back of his knees and in his hair. He’s drinking coffee, he’s talking about god knows what. He’s staring up at the sunrise and Louis remembers that morning, remembers the chill in the air and how Harry’s curls had still been mussed with sleep, how his eyelids were a little puffy from the early hour and he’d still managed to bring Louis coffee. He remembers laying back in the dewy grass and watching the sun come up past the skyscrapers and how he’d wanted to hold Harry’s hand so badly, kiss him, press close and share his body heat until they couldn’t tell who was who.

“I’m so stupid,” Louis breathes out, and there’s an agreeable noise behind him that can belong to no one but Harry.

“You really are,” Harry says. “You’re also really late. More than fashionably so.”

“I know,” Louis croaks out. He can’t really take his eyes off the photographs, though, can’t really look away from the dozens of pictures of himself plastered and framed and displayed for everyone here to see. “I was at work.” He moves down the row. He doesn’t even know when Harry took some of these. “I didn’t realize I was part of the show.”

Harry shrugs, standing close next to Louis. “You can tell me if it’s too much.”

“No, it’s--” Louis cuts himself off, a little lost for words and thoughts and sense. He wants to say a million things, wants to say things like _can I kiss you_ and _please don’t let me mess this up_ and _we should definitely have sex tonight_ but instead he only says, “You make me look really good,” which is probably better than anything.

Harry laughs, quiet and a little disbelieving. “I didn’t, like, change your face or anything, you know,” he says. “You always look good.”

“That is patently untrue,” Louis tells him. “But flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Yeah?” Harry murmurs. “Where will it get me tonight?”

Louis swallows. “I’ve got a bed,” he says. Hesitant. Merely a suggestion. “And a flatmate that can be told to stay the fuck out until morning.”

“I’ve got a bed, too,” Harry reminds him. “And a room on campus that’s all mine.”

Louis glances at the people milling about, staring at the photographs, staring at the photographs of _him_. “I mean, I could always stick around afterwards and meet your friends--”

“Or you could come back to mine once this is over.”

“Which is when?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Right,” Louis says. “Right. I--are we doing this then?”

Harry kisses him again, and it catches him off guard just as much as the first time. He clings to Harry’s waist, feels the muscles underneath his clothes that are usually hidden under his winter layers and his hoodies.

Someone yells, “Get a room!” and Louis pulls back, startled, but Harry laughs against his mouth, keeps his hands tight against Louis’ hips and loops his fingers in the belt loops.

“So you’ll wait, right?”

“Obviously, Harold.”

Harry goes off to mingle or something important. He leaves Louis to look around at the rest of the photographs, staring off into space really, because he can’t much concentrate now that he knows what will happen afterwards.

He slips into the hallway and off to a secluded corner, crouched down and pressed against the wall with his phone.

“Are you on fire?” Zayn asks. “Why are you calling me again?”

“Zayn, I--” Louis’ throat closes up, the words stuck and jumbled in a painful lump. “Should I do this? I mean, like, he’s so young and I don’t want to mess him up and--”

“ _Lou_ ,” Zayn says. “God, he’s stuck around this long, hasn’t he? You have that effect on people, you know. You make them stay. Look at me.”

“You love me though,” Louis tells him. “You’re contractually obligated to keep being my best friend at this point.”

Zayn sighs, and Louis hears him shuffling around. “Shit, are you at work?”

“Yes,” Zayn says. “So this is a really bad time for you to be overreacting.”

Louis looks back towards the gallery. People are leaving, he can tell. Putting their coats on and heading towards the doors. “Do you think I’ll mess this up?” he asks. Quiet enough that he can almost pretend he didn’t say it.

“I’ll kill you if you do,” Zayn tells him. “I have to go work now so we can still have a place to live.”

Louis takes a few minutes to get himself together. To talk himself out of all the scenarios running through his head and making him second-guess everything before it’s even happened. He presses his palms against his eyes and tries to breathe, tries to fucking breathe.

“Hey,” Harry says from behind him. He stands a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets and looking uncertain. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Louis lets out, quiet. He clambers to his feet, walking towards Harry til their toes touch and Louis can smell Harry’s cologne and whatever it is he puts in his hair. “Hi,” he says. And he leans up, ignoring how much fucking shorter he is than Harry and just focusing on kissing the frown off his face, because this is something he can _do_ now.

Harry smiles, this ridiculous thing and his lips are red and a bit wet and god, Louis almost told this boy _no_.

“Everyone’s gone now,” Harry tells him. “So we can back to my room if you want?”

“Yes,” Louis says decisively. “Absolutely yes.”

-

\-----

It’s hard for Harry to stop _staring_. Louis is all curves and angles and a part of Harry wants to grab his camera and another part just wants to touch.

“Next time I want to take pictures,” Harry mumbles, mouthing against Louis’ hips and his belly and right above his trousers. “Please.”

Louis clenches his fingers in the sheets. The flush in his face runs the length of his torso, and Harry can’t get enough of it.

“Absolutely not,” Louis gasps out. “No pictures ever.”

Harry hums thoughtfully, his fingers working at Louis’ trousers and briefs until he’s naked and writhing against the sheets on the small bed. “Come on, Harry,” Louis pleads. “Come _on_.”

Harry’s fingers are slippery with lube, shaky with nerves and he fumbles a few times, nervous as he opens Louis up. Louis’ skin prickles with goosebumps, and Harry is fascinated by him, by the sounds he makes with Harry’s fingers pressed deep inside him.

“God,” Harry breathes out. “Is this okay?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Louis chokes out. “Stop and I’ll shave your head or something, Harold, I swear.”

Harry laughs, eyes focused on where his fingers are pushing inside Louis and it’s so slick and, “I want to fuck you. Can we do that?”

“I said don’t be stupid,” Louis tells him, nails digging into Harry’s arms to pull him up. “So obviously yes.”

Getting a condom on and getting slicked up is easy, because Harry’s done this before, done this sex thing, but this is Louis now. Spread out on Harry’s bed, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut when Harry pushes in.

Louis is tight (sotightsotightsotight) and he’s sweating a bit, his eyes wide open now and his lips bitten pink. He nods for Harry to keep going, his mouth dropping open and he lets out a sound that goes straight to Harry’s cock.

“Jesus, Louis,” Harry murmurs. “Don’t think I’m going to last.”

Louis just looks so good underneath him, thick thighs bent over and he’s gorgeous like this. Flushed and turned on and relaxed. Harry aches to get a photograph of him like this, so he commits the look to memory instead, kisses Louis to capture his taste and he can’t take his eyes off Louis’ jaw or his eyes or anything.

Harry buries his face in Louis’ neck, uncaring of everything but the way Louis’ cock rubs up between them and the choked little moans he lets out every time it does. Harry loses his rhythm, hips stuttering with how good it feels.

“Touch me,” Louis says. “Please, please touch me.”

It’s a little awkward. Harry’s hand working between them and Louis trying to thrust up and get some friction but they make it through, Harry’s movements getting more erratic and Louis’ nails digging into his arms, his back, scraping against the skin.

“You close?” Harry asks him.

Louis nods, whines a bit when Harry speeds up and moves his hand to match. “Yeah, yeah, I’m close.”

Harry tries to hold out, leans back up to watch Louis’ face when he comes, the way his mouth drops open and he curses, strained and raspy and unbelievably hot. Harry can’t hold out after that, muffling his moans into Louis’ skin and probably pressing bruises into his hips with how hard Harry’s holding on.

“Fucking hell,” Louis mumbles. “I can’t feel my legs.”

Harry snorts, rolling off Louis tiredly and pressing their sides together, sticky now. “Good?” he asks.

He feels Louis bat at him, weak and uncoordinated. “You already know it was good, Harold,” he says.

And Harry’s too worn out to move just yet, so he doesn’t.

\-----

On a Sunday morning Harry’s alarm goes off at 6:45, blaring in the silence of his small room.

“Kill it,” Louis mumbles. “With fire.”

He’d only gotten there a few hours ago, off work late and tailgating in behind drunken stragglers and knocking on Harry’s door until he’d woken up. Harry pushes at him now, digs his fingers in Louis’ ribs until he gets up.

“Can’t we skip one morning?” Louis asks. His voice is raspy with sleep. “No one has to know.”

Harry ignores him and gets dressed, checking out the window to make sure it’s not snowing again. The glass is basically iced over, so he guesses it’s freezing as usual outside. The jumper he grabs is probably not his, too soft and the sleeves don’t quite reach his wrists the way he expects.

They share earphones on the subway until Louis falls asleep and Harry steals the other one back.

_and I need your soul, ‘cause you’re always soulful_

_and I need your heart, ‘cause you’re always in the right places_

Louis pays for coffee this morning, and he smiles in a way that Harry knows it will never happen again. It warms their fingers though, almost better than gloves when the heat seeps through.

“Missed sunrise,” Harry says, when they’re settled on their bench and Louis is barely sitting up next to him. “Maybe next week.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Louis mumbles. “I’ll come over to yours again and we can watch it from your window.”

He dozes while Harry takes his photographs, gets the sun peeking through the trees and their barren branches and the dead grass the trees rest on, firm from the ice and snow that’s fallen so far this winter. He captures the skyscrapers, the reflective glass that glints under the sunbeams and all the people that go in and out of them.

“I want to take a picture of you,” Harry says.

Louis peeks an eye open. “Are you ever going to get tired of taking pictures of me?”

Harry clicks the shutter in response, captures Louis’ sleepy eyes in the frame, the collar of his coat and the love bite that sits high on his neck.

“Get my good side?” Louis asks him.

There is no such thing as a good side, Harry always sticks by that. People have angles and lines and curves and scars. They have crooked noses and uneven eyebrows and filthy grins, sometimes.

Louis has freckles that he hates, faint ones that come out in the sun and splatter across his nose. His eyes change colors in different lights and it’s hell for Harry to edit, but he does, because Louis is gorgeous no matter how blue his eyes seem that day. He’s too mouthy and Harry can see it in his grin right now that he’s waiting to say something awful, probably.

Louis doesn’t have a good side or a bad side. He’s just _Louis_ and he makes Harry feel less alone in this huge fucking city so far from home.

“Of course I did,” Harry says. “I always get your good side.”

\-----

The end.


End file.
